magus

Yeah, I looked a little more, and I can’t remember where I saw that comparison for the first time. I’ve edited it to be a bit less exaggerated, although I think the overall point - that the evidence for Jesus “guy who got nailed to some planks that one time” is about as strong as what we have for many other historical figures - still stands.

Note 1 (not citation 1 because things have to be confusing) of Wikipedia’s Historicity of Jesus article lists ten different quotes of various sources (three of them are Bart Ehrman) reiterating that his existence as a normal guy is widely accepted, here’s one of them:

Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.

~ Graham Stanton (2002). The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford Bible Series) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 145.

You can be perfectly skeptical of the miraculous claims about Jesus, but he’s about as well attested in history as Alexander the Great almost certainly a Real Guy.

It’s more or less impossible to come up with a standard of historical evidence that doesn’t allow Jesus “the guy from Nazareth who went around saying the end of the world was at hand” without throwing out… most everyone in history before maybe 200 CE?

(edited to be less exaggerated. I know I heard the comparison somewhere once but it’s not accurate.)